Chapter 63. The Day After

“Is that really what happened?” a fat man asked while looking down at me.

I was currently sitting in a small room, full of thick walls and a randomly placed mirror on one side of the room. It was obvious that the mirror had something special about it, but they had also placed a couple of tiny shackles in my wrists that blocked my mana, so I couldn’t properly sense what was going on with it.

I sighed and nodded my head. “Yes. I simply went there and defended myself when they attacked me.”

The man leaned back and shook his head while grunting. “You do know that that’s private property, and that you can’t just stroll right in there. Also, we cannot be having people taking justice into their own hands. If you knew that they were criminals, your job was to report it to us.”

“There was no time to report it. We had to act fast to save the life of the child,” I replied while following with my eyes the man that had stood up and was now pacing inside the room.

He stopped and shook his head once more. “You don’t know that. That’s only something that you’re assuming.” He looked at me for a moment before grabbing the chair on the other side of the table to sit down on it again, interlocking his fingers as he looked at me. “Listen, this is not an easy case. We can’t allow citizens to kill people. The leader of the… cult… has already shown himself and is pressing charges against you. If you work with us, we might be able to get a good deal for you.”

“I’ve already told you what happened. I did what was right,” I said, not letting myself be intimidated by his words.

And intimidated I hardly was. It was normal for knights and guards to do as they pleased with criminals—even suspected ones—so they would beat up, or even abuse them as they pleased. This man, however, had never even flown the idea of threatening me with any kind of physical violence. At most he would threaten prison, but not even he himself said once that it was going to be by his own hand.

Nobody here had even tried to do something to me. The only annoying part was that they kept me in this room while they talked and talked and asked the same questions again and again, seemingly unconvinced about my retelling of the events.

I had, of course, left out the part where I used Darkness and Hellfire, saying that it was simple fire magic, as they didn’t need to know that, and I didn’t want to give them another reason to hate me.

“You appear to be very calm about this whole thing,” he said, leaning back on the chair to look at me with annoyance.

“I’ve faced worse,” I replied, my eyes on him as I tried to be as expressionless as I could—not that I had to try hard to do so.

He sighed and scratched the shadow of a beard that he had. “That little japping goblin that you have as a friend isn’t going to help you here. He might be able to pull the other couple of demons away from us—as they are Arretian citizens—but you don’t have that same luxury. You must answer to us.”

“I have answered everything you have asked,” I replied, glancing at the large mirror before looking back at him. “Don’t you also have all the people that were trapped there?”

He smirked. “We sure do, but half of them say that you’re even more dangerous than the very people that had them captive, so we can’t just let you go.”

I frowned. “How would they know? None of them saw me fight.”

“Most of them said that you are a…”—he looked down at his large phone—“…‘Hero of the Holy Gods’. Explain that to me.”

“It is a title that was given for—for…” I trailed off, unwilling to admit the next part.

The man raised an eyebrow. “For…?”

I tightened my lips and looked down slightly. “For someone who destroyed the world.”

“So… what? Like some sort of villain?” he asked, looking as if I had talked about a bedtime story.

But his answer wasn’t too far off from reality. “Something like that… I guess…”

He leaned on the table slightly. “So they’re saying that you’re a villain. I gotta say, I can’t deny their claims, as the mess of corpses you left behind wasn’t something a heroine would leave.”

“I’m not a heroine,” I replied, looking back up at the man.

He flinched slightly at my glare, but continued with the same attitude he had. “Sure you aren’t.” He stood back up and paced once more. “Just tell us the real reason behind your actions. Is there some sort of feud with the Followers of Leyfall? I mean, it’s okay if you say so, it wouldn’t be strange for someone to hate those kinds of people.”

“No. I don’t care about them. They simply kidnapped a child and I was going over to look for her,” I said, following him with my eyes.

“You can’t expect me to believe that—”

Suddenly the door of the room was quickly opened. A young man wearing a police uniform was standing by the door with a hasty expression. “Sir, there’s an urgent matter.”

“I’m sure it can wait. We’re not done here,” he said, waving the man away dismissively.

“It can’t wait,” the police man insisted.

The fat man sighed and looked at the police man. “How urgent is it?”

“Extremely urgent. You… we might be in trouble if you don’t come right away,” the police man continued with a grave expression.

The man raised an eyebrow. “Well… alright then.” He turned to look at me with a serious expression. “You stay put.”

Having said that, the man quickly left with the other police man who closed the door to the room, leaving me completely alone with a nearly deafening silence.

I looked around at the clear walls, the strange mirror, and the small shackles in my wrists. Under any circumstance, it would feel strange to have one’s magic restricted like this, but it hadn’t been the first time that this happened. I remembered the panic I felt the first time when I couldn’t use my magic, but it didn’t take long for me to figure that Holy Power couldn’t be restricted with normal means.

Wondering if the same could be applied here, I reached for my Darkness and Hellfire power. It easily bypassed all the restrictions of these shackles, empowering my body, and even letting me reach a little bit of my mana. I tried to apply force on the small things, and they easily bent with the little bit of force I used. If I so desired, I could’ve left this place whenever I wanted.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

But the knights, guards, and police in this place had been strangely nice to me—despite the outward annoyance that they had for me. Not only did they never try to do something to me, they even read me my ‘rights’ as if I was some noble girl or something like that, when in reality, I had nothing to do with them. Because of that, I didn’t see a reason to fight with them or do something like that, so I just left the shackles as they were with the slight bend.

A few minutes later, the door to the room opened once more and the fat man that was talking to me quickly made his way over.

“You’re free to go,” he said with an unwilling tone of voice as he removed the restraining shackles off of me.

“Why the change of attitude?” I asked as I rubbed my wrists.

“You seem to have extremely powerful friends looking out for you…” he said, before closely looking at me with a frown. “But your luck won’t last forever. Next time, I’ll make sure that you answer for your crimes.”

I remained expressionless but inwardly confused, since I didn’t remember having anyone more powerful than Erus, who so far had been unable to free me from this place.

“There won’t be a next time,” I said and stood up from the chair.

He scoffed. “We’ll see about that.”

I ignored his words and made my way out of the room. There were a few people looking at me, probably due to the black armor that I was still wearing. I did just as I did to the fat man and ignored them as I walked to the exit of this place, where a man brought out the few things I had with me before, like the large black sword, the armor's gauntlets, and the phone.

I quietly took them and left the building, the people inside seemingly uninterested in me as they brought in other people in similar shackles. I looked at the clear skies with a horizon full of clouds and covered part of my face to avoid the bright noon sun.

There was no memory in me about where this place was, and I had no idea about how to get back to the room I’m staying in. With a frown, I looked at the phone, but it wouldn’t turn on, which meant that it was likely out of batteries.

Concern washed over me as I remembered what had happened on my first night in this world, and if there was something that I didn’t want to repeat, was having another fine for sleeping in some garden, which meant that I’ll have to either walk until I find the room or… hope that someone gets me there, like a couple of police women had done before.

“Hey!” someone’s deep, bassy voice called out to me. “What’s with the heavenly expression?”

I turned to look at this person. It was Bo’guth, only that this time he was wearing the same kind of normal clothes that most people in this world wore, with a light blue long sleeved shirt, a black leather jacket on top, a pair of black pants, and some shiny black shoes; all of them oversized to fit him.

“I wasn’t sure about how I was going to go back home,” I confessed as the demon made his way to me.

He loudly laughed and shook his head. “Come on now, I wasn’t going to leave such a dear friend of mine to be left all alone after saving my family. I’ll give you a ride!”

I didn’t see a reason to refuse him, so I nodded and followed along. “How did it go for you? They didn’t seem to want to let me leave.”

“Oh…” he replied with a half-smile. “That talkative friend of yours, Erus, was insistent in that a life savior and his friends shouldn't’ be thrown in jail—he even said that he was going to elevate this to the higher ups, so they let both me and Iggy go, but… for you, they said that you weren’t an Arrietan citizen, which I find strange…”

“I’m not. I only have this ID card for this place,” I replied and searched for the little rectangle, showing it to Bo’guth.

“Huh. Why did you refuse your original world’s citizenship?” he asked as we were approaching his large car.

“I… I didn’t know that I could have an ID from my world, I just assumed that this was how it was,” I confessed and took hold of the car’s door without opening it.

Bo’guth paused for a moment to look at me, astonished, before bursting out in laughter as he grabbed his face. “I can’t believe it!”

I pouted and finally opened the door. “Lets just go already.”

Bo’guth settled down and got inside the car as well, chucking as he did, and after a minute, we finally left this place.

* * *

He didn’t immediately take me to the room I’m staying in, as he insisted that I meet his family under better circumstances than the ones we had the other night. Right now I was sitting at a large black table, looking down at a dark liquid that Igladith had procured from who-knows-where.

Their home was still mostly in the same mess as it was left, only that with a bit of magic, most of the mess was cleared, leaving only the holes and broken things that were pushed outside.

To my right, the little demon girl was sitting while carrying a shy look as she glanced at me without actually staring nor saying anything. I thought that perhaps she was scared of me, but she wasn’t running away nor appeared to be on the verge of tears. She was just… curious.

I turned to look at Bo’guth, who easily downed the dark liquid without hesitation, before turning to look at me. “Is something wrong? Not thirsty?”

“This… what is this…?” I asked as I looked at the drink.

“What do you mean ‘what is this’? It's just a soda,” he said and bit into one of his sandwiches.

“But… it’s bubbling…” I said with the same frown.

“That’s what makes it even more refreshing,” Bo’guth continued, before scrambling to get a glass of milk. “Ohhh hot hot hot, like the fires from hell hot, hoooo.”

Mirlaneth giggled as she watched Bo’guth down the milk. I hesitated to take hold of the dark liquid, and while I was doing so, Igladith walked into the room with another plate of sandwiches. She calmly placed them on the table before sitting next to Mirlaneth.

“I understand you once had one of these?” she asked, pointing at the sandwiches. “I can’t say I was happy to hear that, but… as a show of my appreciation, I made some just for you—and don’t worry, I left the hot things out of it.”

“You—haaa—left them out? But that’s the exciting part!” Bo’guth exclaimed, nearly dropping the glass of milk.

Igladith softly smiled and shook her head. “That’s only for you. Most people would rather not have seconds of that.”

“Yes daddy, that’s too hot,” Mirlaneth followed up with a giggle.

“Bah!” he exclaimed and reached for another one of his own sandwiches.

I finally put aside my worries about the drink and the food, taking a sip from the dark liquid. If it was poisonous, then I would cleanse it later. But to my surprise, the drink was actually sweet, and the cold feeling with the bubbling gave it a rather… pleasant feeling. It wasn’t something that I would drink over water or juice, but it wasn’t bad.

The sandwiches were also quite good. I couldn’t tell if it was because of the ingredients or the way that Igladith made them, but I liked them. “These are… fantastic.”

“I’m not sure how to feel about you saying that, but I’m glad to see that you don’t hate it,” Igladith replied with an awkward smile.

“Mommy’s food is always the best!” Mirlaneth followed up and ate the little ones that she had in front.

Igladith softly laughed while caressing the girl’s head, while Bo’guth loudly laughed and nodded along.

We spent the rest of that afternoon doing nothing much other than just talking about the little things in the house, like how they were going to fix it and how they were hoping that I would come by again—they being mostly Bo’guth.

When the sun was already setting, I excused myself to leave, stopping only to talk to Igladith. “I should return the armor and weapon to you.”

Igladith looked down at the armor I was still wearing for a moment, but she shook her head. “No, it’s okay. You may keep it. I have no use for it, and if you can do good with it like you did to save my daughter, then I hope that it will help you do it.”

I was taken aback, since I didn’t expect that answer from her of all people. “Are you certain? Isn’t this important to you?”

“It is, but it was used to save my daughter, and it should be used to do that for other people. I hope—” she looked at me for a moment with a serious expression, “—I hope you do good… by everyone, regardless how they look or where they come from.”

I looked up to her eyes, sustaining the look momentarily, before looking over at the smiling Bo’guth and the little Mirlaneth who carried a similar smile to her dad. I placed a hand on the armor and looked at it, nodding as I did.

“I cannot change the past, but… I… I won’t repeat the same mistake again,” I said and finally looked up at Igladith again.

She softly smiled and nodded. “I hope so.” She then brought out the same old Magic Pocket where the armor and weapon were stored. “You can have this too. This was used only to store it, and I don’t think it would look good for you to walk around in that gear.”

I took it, nodded in appreciation and went to another room to change back into the Academy’s uniform. Once that was done, I finally said my goodbyes to the family, and Bo’guth called a car for me to go home.